For a long time, I have always been suspicious about the way Thai pastors run their
churches. Based upon my not-so-impressive experience in the past, I suspected that their
churches should have been more effective and efficient provided that they have good
management knowledge and skills.
The main purpose of this study is to find out whether the understanding of
management knowledge and skills of Thai pastors can enhance the performance of their
ministry works, or in other words, on the contrary, the lack of management knowledge and
skills hinder their ministerial performance. To satisfy the purpose of the study, I have to
find out the relationship between Thai pastors’ performance in ministry and their
management knowledge and skills.
The study was undertaken using Explanatory Sequential Design of the Mixed
Methods where I employed quantitative research and then follow-on with qualitative
research. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was developed to survey 376 pastors of
churches throughout Thailand. Part of the results of the quantitative study was used as a
basis for the qualitative study with ten (10) pastors who were drawn from the same pool of
the respondents of the quantitatively study.
These results suggest that there is a close relationship between the pastors’
performance in their ministry work and their management knowledge and skill—this is
quite expected. However, more specifically, it is found that Thai pastors, in general, have
relatively good knowledge of management and skills. This latter result is a little surprising
to me as I expect the situation would be the opposite.
Despite the results, about the management knowledge of the Thai pastors, first,
there is a great improvement potential that can be realized. Most important of all is to
enhance the curriculum of seminaries and Bible schools, to incorporate management
knowledge to adequately prepare new pastors for the churches. Secondly, there is an equal
need for equipping the currently serving pastors and church leaders for them to be better
equipped with management techniques and skills for the advancement of Thai churches in
the future.